This beneficial Change of Individuals seems rather to be from the forementioned Causes, than from Change of Food; and these Causes shew their Efficacy, chiefly in the Generation or Fœtation of those Seeds; as Flax-seed brought from _Holland_, and sown here, will bring as fine Flax as there; but the very next Generation of it coarser, and so degenerating gradually, after Two or Three Descents, becomes no better than the common ordinary Sort; yet its Food is the same, when the Flax is fine, as when ’tis coarse. And so it is, when Individuals of Wheat are changed: So Silk-worms, hatched and bred in _France_, of Eggs or Seed brought from _Italy_, will make as fine Silk as the _Italian_; but the Eggs of these laid in _France_ and their Issue, will make no better Silk than the _French_; though their Food be from Leaves of the same Mulberry-trees, when they make fine Silk and coarse: Therefore ’tis from the Climate, where the Eggs are impregnated, not where they have their Incubation or Food, when hatched, and fed to their Lives End, that this Difference happens. Common Barley, sown once in the burning Sand at _Patney_ in _Wiltshire_, will, for many Years after, if sown on indifferent warm Ground, be ripe Two or Three Weeks sooner than any other[216], which has never been impregnate at _Patney_: But if sown a Degree farther North, on cold clayey Land, will, in Two or Three Years, lose this Quality, and become as late ripe as any other. [216] Barley is far from being improved by becoming rath-ripe; for it loses more good Qualities than it gets by being sown at _Patney_: ’Tis so tender, that if it be sown early, the Frost is apt to kill it; or if it be sown late in _May_, on the same Day, and in the same Soil, with the same Sort of Barley that is not rath-ripe, it will be much thinner bodied than the late-ripe; and besides, if it happens to have any Check by Cold or Drought, it never recovers it as the other doth, at what time soever it is sown. It is now, I am informed, gone out of Fashion, and very few Farmers have sown it of late Years. I know a little Parish, that, I believe, formerly lost about Two hundred Pounds _per Ann._ by sowing rath-ripe Barley: But long and dear Experience hath now convinced them of their Error, and obliged them totally to disuse it. Indeed _Patney_ is far from improving the Species of Barley, except we think it improved by becoming more weak and tender, and shorter-lived; which last-mentioned Quality fits it for such Countries, where the Summers are too short for other Barley to ripen. The Grains or Seeds of Vegetables are their Eggs; and the individual Plants, immediately proceeding from them, have not only the Virtues they received in Embryo (or rather _in plantulis_), but the Diseases also; for when smutty Wheat is sown, unless the Year prove very favourable, the Crop will be smutty; which is an evident Token of _mala stamina_.